Scrum backlog templates and examples

Bas Vodde collected and published examples and templates of the Scrum product and Sprint backlogs. Most of them are in MS Excel format. Some (XLS) include a lot of comments, some (XLS) are very colourful. Check them out, Excel can really cover most of the needs of the archived backlog tracking.

Cached templates
Here are the cached copies of templates that I reviewed on this website.

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A good idea. Though not sure if I am able to understand these templates - I personally use different excels. Maybe I will find time to dig through these examples and create some screencast on using them. Or maybe somebody else could do it :)

And exactly two months later, here is the first video tutorial! :)
Let's see what the comments will say. If the people like the tutorial, I will probably shoot more screencasts for different templates.

Product Backlogs: List of desired functionality in the system.
Team Commits to getting "X" number of items from the Product Backlogs done in 30 days .
This 30 days is called Sprint Backlog.Sprint Backlog:List of items that must be done to turn the Product Backlog into shippable items during the Sprint

Oups, it looks like file was missing on the server for some strange reason.
Anyway, I uploaded it again and you can download the template from the "ph_product_sprint_backlog_0.03.xls" link in the post.

Extract from that place
The columns are estimates in days of six items on the product backlog. The first column is the 90% confident estimate, the next is the 50% estimate, the final is the squared difference of the two.

.....

Sum the squared differences and get 51. Take the square root of that and get
about 7. The seven is the project buffer. Add that to the sum of the 50%
estimates (16) and get 23. So, to buffer this project to a 90% level of
confidence you should plan on 23 days, not the 16 that is the sum of the 50%
estimates or the 31 that is the sum of the 90% estimates. Naturally this
doesn't add a lot of value when there are only this many tasks.

I'm trying to figure out how I can change the default colors that appear when the task status is updated to Ongoing or Done. Can you point me in the right direction? I don't see any VBA code or formulas that I can tweak.

If you want to order a product backlog with more than 127 rows you need to redefine some names because the macro uses them.
"ProductBacklog" (I found it in the main menù -> insert - names - define).
It was defined as:
='Product Backlog'!$A$4:$G$127
and redefined as:
='Product Backlog'!$A$4:$G$1024
And so on with
"StoryName": redefined as ='Product Backlog'!$B$5:$B$1024
"Status": redefined as ='Product Backlog'!$C$5:$C$1024
"Sprint": redefined as ='Product Backlog'!$E$5:$E$1024

Apply the same to the Sort Sprint Task macro as it uses "SprintTasks", "TaskStoryID") and "TaskStatus".

I'm using the Petri Heiramo advanced sheet since july 2009. I also added some macros that help me going on with iteration and synchronizing product backlog to sprint backlog and generating new sprint. Now I wonder that product backlog is owned by the product owner, and he put there just "business cases". When the team explode them in task, probably it means that I'm going to put the tasks in the sprint backlog. So I would like to decouple the product backlog and the sprint backlog, but I also would like to create a hierarchy so I have two item's level in the sprint backlog: a story development would be completed only when all the related tasks are completed, then the product backlog may be synchronized.
Otherwise, like I'm operating today, I must add tasks to the product backlog or just remember the relationships between a task (sprint) and a story (product). But tasks are not owned by the PO and a relationship should be defined into the sheet.

> Now I wonder that product backlog is owned by the product owner, and
> he put there just "business cases". When the team explode them in task,
> probably it means that I'm going to put the tasks in the sprint backlog.

In your team, is this activity of task planning done in advance to a sprint starting?

> So I would like to decouple the product backlog and the sprint backlog,
> but I also would like to create a hierarchy so I have two item's level in the
> sprint backlog: a story development would be completed only when all
> the related tasks are completed, then the product backlog may be synchronized.

I personally think this is overcomplexifying the issue. Of course, I don't know this particular case, but I don't see the great benefit from this activity being done within the Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog. Firstly, I wouldn't go into task level (apart from discussions related to estimating the size and effort) until the beginning of an iteration where the story is being made, and then track the tasks on a wall board or some other similar mechanic. This would mean that the Product Backlog would ever only have business stories and that the Sprint Backlog is emptied between iterations. Thus I wouldn't have the problem you're describing.

In fact, I don't even have an Excel based Sprint Backlog anymore in the latest version of the template. :)

I sent the latest (public) version of the Product Backlog template to Artem and maybe he will find the time to publish it :).

There are some key changes to the version that has been here.

It no longer has a burndown, but burn-up. I personally just prefer that for its visual appearance and ability to better visualize different feature priorities in it. Because of that, it currently requires that the "MoSCoW" column in the backlog sheet must have some value in it or the diagram doesn't work (it could simply be "Must" for every story).

I dropped the sprint burndown completely. I don't see any value for it anymore in that Excel. If the team is small and colocated, I'd always prefer a physical team wall and a hand-drawn burndown. If the team is large or not colocated, well, an Excel just doesn't make sense to me as a tool.

so there are now three sheets: the original one (that I'm recommending everywhere), the new one that you recently added (I didn't see it yet, but let me download it), and finally the original with some enhancement.
I really appreciated you comment and I understood that I was wrong: so the enhancements are just in the way of simplifying the management of all these sheets such as the automatic creation of a new sprint sheet, the synchronization of the sprint backlog to the product backlog, some different type of ordering. The most debated one was the synchronization: now I presume the Product backlog contains only business level stories (each one with a unique story ID) while the Sprint backlog contains tasks where more tasks can be related to a single story (same story ID). So the status of the item on the product backlog depends on the status of every task related. Yes, it is probably useless, but it's dramatically different to the intermediate version where I copy every task from the sprint backlog to the product backlog. While may be it was a VBA exercise, it was a big step towards the comprehension of Scrum philosophy.

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